Brads_Reef Rimless 48 gallon Mixed Reef

[Brads_Reef]

A brief history in the hobby

I have been in the hobby for a little over a year and a half and decided to purchase equipment that I want to see on my tank now knowing what I know. Like most, I started off small with an AIO tanks. 28g nanocube by JBJ. I traded my freshwater aquarium for it and haven’t looked back. Since then, I have had a 30L which I ended up drilling and placing a glass holes overflow (While the aquarium was 50% full I may ad). The tank didn’t last long as we were renting a house and had just purchased our own. I figured this would be a good time to upgrade tanks. I ended up finding a used 75g Marineland RR Reef Ready aquarium and stand from a local guy. This aquarium was up and running for a little over a year before deciding to take it down. This was due to inadequate instruction given while away for 14 days on my honeymoon. The tank was green and figured it wasn’t worth saving the sanded. I transferred all of my favorite corals to my 25g AIO Solana and sold the common stuff. Now enter the “itch”. We have great local fish store in the Green Bay area called Reefs and I saw that they had a 48g Reef Octopus starfire aquarium with the overflow for a reasonable amount. I originally decided against it as I wanted to drill my own tank and wanted to keep the 40B footprint. I had a friend drill the tank as I broke a couple practice tanks in practice. Unfortunately while hand tightening the bulk heads the glass cracked and the tank was no longer usable. The next morning I went to my LFS and picked up the 48g Reef Octopus tank.

 

Focus of this build is a heavily stocked mixed reef with 3 Island Aquascape. I am aiming for a minimalistic look with clean negative space and adequate swimming room for a few inhabitants.

 

Tank: Reef Octopus lux 90 with overflow system

Stand: Reinforced Oak Cabinet from 1940. I refinished this and with a friend added more than enough support for 500+ lbs

Return: I wanted a DC pump for this build so I selected the waveline DC4000

Skimmer: Reef Octopus 110sss. I was a huge fan of the original nwb 110 for my previous tank.

Heater: Eheim Jager 200w.

Circulation pumps: Two vortech mp10s placed on either side. I have been using these in my 25g AIO for the past 3 Months.

Sump: 20g Long with removable baffle. I may just pull this. Only using this for a large skimmer, return and passive media bags that contain carbon and high capacity GFO. Reactors if needed will be added.

Lighting: 2 Hamilton Cayman Sun Pendants with Electronic ballasts. This is where I strayed from the norm. I am an equipment junkie and have owned every name brand LED one point in time. I love the visual brightness of halide lighting. On my 75 I ran 3 kessil a360we and felt I needed more light as some of the more sensitive acropora looked blah. One determining fact or was that my LFS runs halides above their SPS tank and since that is the focus of this “Mixed Reef” I decided go this route as well.

ATO: Tunze Osmolator

[Slowtwitch]

Looking forward to seeing where this goes.

[Brads_Reef]

Leak test is completed. I was orignally going to hard plumb this tank but with the unique overflow and metric PVC used it pretty much left not other option. Will be taking pictures of the filtration, Ballast shelf, and DIY light hangers made out of wood. Lights are mounted and look great. Im going to start with them 11 inches off of the water surface and raise / lower after I scape depending on Par.